I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just
as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
These words come as
no surprise to us do they? We’ve heard
them before. If you’ve ever been to
church on a Thursday night in Holy Week, you’ve heard these words before. In fact, the very name of this day “Maundy”
comes from the Latin “Mandatum”, meaning “command”. This is the day Jesus commands us to love. It’s what we’ve come to expect isn’t it? No surprises are there? Jesus’ command to love one another is so old
school for us that we could write the book on love.
Or could we? Do we really have this love-concept
down?
I think if we’re
really honest with ourselves, we’re going to acknowledge that Jesus’ command to
love isn’t so easy. We’re going to admit
somewhere in the deepest recesses of our heart, that we just don’t get it. We just don’t get why Jesus would give such
an unreasonable command as to love.
But isn’t that
what Jesus does so well?
Just when we
think we have him all figured out…
Just when we think that we have tamed him…
Jesus throws everything into disarray and confusion.
Just when I
think I have him all figured out, I discover that Jesus isn’t who I thought he
was.
Like Peter in
this evening’s gospel story, who can’t imagine that Jesus the Messiah would
come to suffer and serve in the most demeaning and self- emptying way, I find
myself baffled and crying out in protest that this isn’t how God is supposed to
do things.
I don’t know
about you, but the more I try to follow Jesus by taking his words to heart, the
more I realize how much Jesus takes me out of my comfort zone.
He tells me to
love and to serve the least of these…
Yet I want to judge
others who are different from me.
He tells me to
love my enemies and to forgive those who do me wrong…
Yet I want to hold a
grudge.
He tells me to
feed the hungry and clothe the naked…
Yet I want to store up my own treasures in heaven
taking care of me and my own first.
Maybe I’m not
the only one who has problems following Jesus.
Maybe the Church finds it just as difficult to follow Jesus as I
do. And maybe that’s the problem.
Stuck in old
habits of survival, I wonder if the church has lost its imagination for
love. Hearkening back to another era
when pews used to be full…
Have we become
so obsessed with church survival that we have retreated to safe places failing
to see the Kingdom of God all around us?
Have we become so obsessed with survival of our
congregations that we have failed to see Jesus has moved into the neighborhood
and is inviting us to join him there?
I give you a new
commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also
should love one another.
Could it really be that simple?
Who else could
command us to love, than the One who on this night was put on death row?
Who else could
command us to love, than the One who was tortured and executed on a cross of
death the next day all the while pleading “Father forgive them”?
Who else could
command us to love, than the One who did not stay dead conquering death once
and for all?
A recent story
on National Public Radio tells the tale of St. Albans Episcopal Church in
Davidson, North Carolina which recently erected a statue of Jesus on its
property in an upscale neighborhood not too unlike the one here around
Incarnate Word.
This is not an
“old school” statue of Jesus for it depicts him not with arms outstretched
looking down on us from above, but huddled under a blanket with his face and
hands obscured; only the crucifixion wounds on his uncovered feet giving him
away.
As you can
guess, the reaction was immediate. Some loved it; but many did not. Thinking the statue was actually a homeless
person, one woman from the neighborhood called the police the first time she
drove by. That’s right, someone called
the cops on Jesus! (As if that’s never
happened to him before).
Another
neighbor wrote a letter to the editor saying that the statue “creeped” him
out. Many more complained that such a
depiction of Jesus was insulting to God and that it demeaned the neighborhood.
So what would
Jesus think of a statue depicting him as a homeless man? Would he be insulted or would he tell us that
how we treat the least of these is how we treat him? Would he take his toys and go home claiming
we had disrespected him or would he tell us to love one another (especially the marginalized and those at
the bottom of the heap) as he has first loved us?
Clearly, St.
Albans Church has stirred up its neighborhood by challenging folks to not only
see Jesus in a new way – but to love in a new way as well. Could Jesus be issuing this same challenge to
us? What would you think if we
commissioned such a statue at our East Avenue entrance? ( By
the way, I know the name of the sculptor and where he lives).
What would the
neighborhood think? What would this
statue say about us? What would this
statue say about Jesus? Perhaps it would
say that Jesus takes this love-thing seriously – and so do we.
